


Japère

by wannabequeen



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bi-Gender, Bi-Gender Character(s), Family, Fluff, Other, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 11:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3648699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wannabequeen/pseuds/wannabequeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>me >> I just thought of the best pun. Prepare yourself. javert ->  japère <br/>jo >> the worst thing is in a japère situation what character would dare say this pun who would be punny enough to come up with and also have the nerve to tell javert?<br/>me >> cosette. It’s gonna be cosette.</p>
<p>(Bigender Jean Valjean and cis dude Javert are raising Cosette, and she isn't sure what to call him)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Japère

“How was school today, ma chérie?” Valjean asks as Cosette buckles herself into the back seat.

“Good! My tadpole grew legs today! I drew a picture,” she says, rummaging through her backpack as if to pull it out.

“Why don’t you show it to me and Javert at dinner? That way we can appreciate it better, since I have to drive right now.”

“Yeah…”

Cosette fiddles with the soot sprite keychain on her backpack – Valjean checks on her in the rear-view mirror when she falls quiet.

“Anything else happen that you want to tell me about?” she prompts.

“Well, in ELA we started a new book that has a family tree at the front, so to learn about family trees we drew our own. And I wasn’t the only one with more than two parents, Chu’s parents divorced and his mom’s remarried, but I’m the only one who calls a parent by their name.”

Cosette smooths her skirt across her knees, takes a deep breath, and continues.

“And now that you and Javert are married, I want to call him something other than Javert, like how I call you Mama or Papa. But I can’t call him Papa, because that’s you sometimes.”

They’re at a stop light, so Jean turns to look at Cosette to look her in the eyes.

“You can call him papa, if you want, sweetheart, I’m not papa all the time, and you can come up for a new name for me when I’m a man.” Jean would miss ‘papa’ if that’s what they wound up doing, but Cosette has been settling into the fact that they married over the summer and Javert is helping parent her more, and the books said that this would probably be a step. The light turns green, and Jean has to look back at the road.

“Mama, you _interrupted_ me! No, I have a plan! I was talking to Shoshi, who has two mamas, and she said that she calls one ‘mom’ and one ‘ima’ which means ‘mama’ in Hebrew. So I was thinking about French, because… duh, and in French, dad is père.”

Cosette pauses here, and looks intently at Jean. Jean isn’t sure what she’s missing, and just says “I’m sure he’d love to be called père, if that’s what you wanted.”

“I was thinking that, but it didn’t feel right, I was practicing in my head and then I had an idea. Ja-père!”

Jean can’t help herself. She snorts a little.

“Yeah, I think it’s funny too, but I don’t want him to think I think it’s a joke, you know? He sometimes gets all - ” Cosette sits up as straight as she can, adjusts an invisible tie, and deepens her voice “ ‘this is a serious matter, Cosette, not a time for laughter!’ and that’s no good. So do you think it’s a good idea, or should I keep thinking?”

Valjean considers as she signals the turn into their driveway. It’s true that Javert doesn’t have the same sense of humor as them, and tends to take things rather more seriously. They’ve been working on the formal adoption paperwork for him, and Javert’s been getting more and more anxious about officially being a father, given the lack of good father-figures in his life. He could interpret this as Cosette making fun of him, or belittling – or he could see it as Cosette staking a claim in him the same way he’ll be staking a claim in her.

“You should do it, honey. If he doesn’t like it, you know he’ll tell you, and you can come up with something else together.”

Cosette sighs and unbuckles herself. “Ok, but you can’t tell first, it’s mine!”

“Sure,” Jean replies, going around to open the door for her. As soon as she does, Cosette leaps out of the car and runs to the swingset in their front yard. Jean sighs, grabs Cosette’s backpack from the car, and heads inside.

__

“Javert?”

He looks up from where he’s recreating the scene of the arrest he made that day with salt shakers and spoons.

“Yes, Cosette?”

“Instead of Javert, I want to call you something else.”

She rapidly shoves an enormous bite of spaghetti into her mouth. Absentmindedly, Javert frowns, reaches over, and wipes sauce off of her chin.

“Small bites, ma petite souris. And what else would you call me?”

Cosette wrinkles her nose and chews. Javert looks over to Jean, who very carefully raises his eyebrows and shrugs. It’s not his to say, but he smiles a little, so Javert knows that it’s a good thing.

“I want to call you Japère.”

Javert’s eyes jerk rapidly toward Cosette, and then get the desperate look of someone rapidly searching for an escape route. He blinks quickly several times, and then freezes completely.

Cosette draws in to herself, hunching over and wringing her hands in her lap. She was right, he hates it, he would never want her to call him that, he thinks she’s just the kid that came along with her parent when they got married. She starts biting her lip. Jean counts out sixty seconds in his head – if this lasts any longer than that, he’ll intervene. At 55, Javert pushes out of his chair and kneels next to Cosette and takes her shoulders in his hands, so he can see her and she can see him.

“Cosette. I would love nothing more than to be your Japère.”

She lets out a watery sigh and flings herself into his arms. Over her shoulder, Javert catches Valjean’s eye. He jerks his head, and Valjean slides out of his chair to wrap his arms around the two people he loves more than anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Cosette, at the time this story takes place, is in 4th grade. Javert and JVJ got married the summer between cosette’s 3rd and 4th grades. She was both the flower girl and ring bearer and nearly died of joy.
> 
> Note on names: I headcanon Javert’s first name as also Jean. It’s weird for Javert and JVJ to call each other by their own names, so they call each other by last name even though they love each other a lot!! Javert just in general prefers going by his last name, so all their friends call him that too, but Valjean likes being called Jean by friends/family/ppl who would usually be calling her by her first name.
> 
> (I wrote out an extensive amount of backstory for something this short)


End file.
